“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make the big things happen.” —John Wooden

I almost missed a meeting; a big one! It was December of 2013 and I was about three weeks into my first principalship. I was chatting on the phone with another high school principal in my school district and as we were concluding our chat, he casually mentioned “the principal meeting tomorrow morning”. My heart jumped as I checked both calendars (you know, the one on my computer and the real one on my desk) and saw…no meeting. I replied to my colleague and told him that I must have accidentally deleted the email with the meeting details and I asked him to forward his email to me. He did, and things suddenly got worse. You see, the email was very specific and it contained instructions about what we (all 23 high school principals) were supposed to read and do before the meeting and it included a detailed agenda for the meeting. Now I was panicking! The meeting started in 16 hours and I began to argue with myself about whether to prepare for the meeting or investigate why I did not receive the email that I could not stop reading.

I decided to investigate first and prepare afterward. I called a friend who worked under the district’s technology infrastructure and asked him for help. Within five minutes he was able to figure out that approximately three weeks before, I had been fully removed from all of the district mailing groups for assistant principals (my old position). However, I did not get added to any of the groups for principals (my new position).

That was it – someone only completed half of the task before them. Another employee who worked in the same organizational division with my highly-competent friend blundered their work…but how? Perhaps their phone rang in the middle of this task and they forgot to complete it. Maybe the most recent removal of an assistant principal was someone who left the district. Possibly, they were new in their role without proper training.

In reality, the reason was not important. It would simply have been an excuse for a mistake that should not have happened, was fully preventable, and, fortunately in my case, ended up being quite inconsequential.

My friend was able to quickly add me to all relevant email groups and I never missed another principal communication. I was also able to prepare for the upcoming meeting and everything returned to the normal that I blissfully thought was already underway.

There are times when getting lost in the weeds (i.e. the details) may distract from the immediate objective; but if the weeds never receive attention, they will choke the life out of their surroundings and prevent the good fruit (i.e. the overall mission) from growing to maturity.

Results matter in school leadership. Mistakes are the enemy of results. Careless mistakes are the antithesis of excellence. If your school/district, or level within, is mired in mediocrity and you have identified mistakes as a likely culprit, we can relate to those circumstances and we can partner with you to devise a solution.